A year ago this past week marked the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic. It also was the last full week of trading in the financial markets preceding crashes in all markets and a near-complete, albeit temporary, shutdown of economic activity.

Subsequent rebounds in stocks, bonds, and real estate took valuations to levels as high or higher (much higher for stocks and gold) than before the turbulence took hold. Some might refer to those valuations as nose-bleed levels, although the summit for peak ascension is always moving when the effects of inflation are factored in.

Gold had its day in the sun, too. After falling sympathetically with other markets, gold's price began an aggressive climb of more than 40% in just four months' time.

IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

It seemed like a runaway win for gold over everything else. Then something changed. While stocks and real estate continued their climb to lofty levels, gold began a seven-month slide back to its pre-pandemic price.

Over the past seven months, from its peak price in August 2020 at $2070, gold has dropped four hundred dollars per ounce back to $1683, its closing price last Monday on March 8th.

Almost exactly one year ago, on the inauspicious day of Monday, March 9, 2020, gold closed at $1680.

After three huge monetary stimulus bills, ongoing new money creation by the Federal Reserve on a daily basis to support the bond and money markets, amidst expectations for rejection and repudiation of the US dollar, and possible runaway inflation; after all of this and more, the net gain for gold for the entire year March 9, 2020, to March 8, 2021, is a paltry $3 per ounce.

This is pictured on the chart (source) below...

It is what it is.